On Sunsets
by eternalhope08
Summary: And she thinks to herself that as long as there are still sunsets, there is still hope. Two-shot, post Titanic, Rose/Jack and how they survive and move on to make it count. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So I just finished watching Titanic really late at night with one of my really good friends, alone in a room with cookies and a box of tissues. And now I have to write this. It's going to be a two-shot—one from Rose's point of view, one from Jack's.**

It takes a while for her to get on her feet again. She spends the first month near starving, cold and penniless and scrubbing tables in New York as a waitress. She watches the calluses grow on her hands bitterly, lives in a dingy apartment that she shares with another girl. The bed is hard and worn and she cries herself to sleep every night—the huge, thick, pearly tears and sniffles kind, accompanied dutifully by heaps and heaps of self-pity. She goes from nobility to nothing in the blink of an eye, so she guesses that a grace period of mourning is deserved.

But one day, as she's busing tables and rubbing her knuckles raw, she sees the sunset from outside the grungy diner and her breath catches in her throat and she can feel his fingers intertwined with hers, resting on her waist as she flies and they kiss and the world explodes with life and color, wave upon wave of glory.

And she thinks to herself that as long as there are still sunsets, there is still hope.

So she starts saving her money and brushing her hair, walks into work straight backed with a smile on her face. And each night there is still a sunset.

She meets Thomas Calvert on her sixth week there. He's a regular—she's seen him before, through her dull, hazed eyes, sitting in the second booth on the right every day, ordering the same black coffee and blueberry pancake at 8 a.m. sharp. He looks at her a lot—she never noticed the admiration until now.

She greets him with a grin and a cheerful: "How are you, sir?", and his eyes light up and suddenly she remembers she has dimples and red hair. He tells her to call him Thomas and she feels pretty for the first time in a while. It's kind of nice.

They don't really talk much until two months later, when she finally accepts his invitation to have a cup of coffee. It's idle chit chat—interests and origins, weather and politics. She's excited that he's read Freud before. He seems nice enough, but he's no Jack.

Things escalate a bit. Thomas starts dropping by for dinner, loitering until she gets off shift and then walking her home. She blushes and flinches away when he tries to hold her hand. His skin doesn't feel right against hers.

It takes her a while to notice the change in her nights. She can't find the tears to cry herself to sleep anymore. Instead, she starts dreaming and thinking and planning what she will do with the money—it's getting more and more substantial, and she has such big ideas. When she isn't daydreaming, she's spending time with Thomas or visiting the library nearby, checking out books and reading them. When she's not doing that, she thinks of Jack.

It still aches. It always will. When she closes her eyes, she can see green eyes and a strand of blond brown hair, falling in his face. More importantly, she can see a person who believes in her—really, truly thinks that she can go wherever she wants, reach the stars if she so desires. If she thinks too hard, the hurt gets unbearable.

So she presses on instead.

It's not that Jack ever fades. She will never let him go.

It's that every moment she breathes is a chance at life, a chance to keep going. She knows too well how precious her steady heartbeat is, her constant inhale exhale. Her future was bought with far too high a price for her to waste it moping, no matter how much easier moping is.

Healing is hard, it really is. She wants nothing more than to crawl into a corner and cry, but his reminder is as perpetual as the dull thud_thud_ in her chest.

_Make it count_.

She has the air in her lungs and blood in her veins, thrumming fiercely. That will have be enough.

She likes to think he's watching her as she goes to the carnival with Thomas and insists on riding the worst spinning roller coaster over and over again, until she stumbles off the cart to the nearest garbage can and heaves and retches her stomach out. Not exactly the most romantic thing for Jack to witness, but nonetheless, important. She's moving. She's going. No matter how hard or how hopeless.

She feels so guilty and dirty at first when Thomas tries to kiss her, pushes him away and runs to a bench sobbing. It's when she's sitting there and she's got her knees pulled up to her chest and the tears running down her cheek that she realizes that she's exactly where she was a year ago—drowning in self-pity alone on a railing, contemplating all the morbidities of the world. Actionless. Caught by inertia. Going nowhere.

She's already been saved once, and it's up to her to save herself this time.

Thomas is really understanding when she explains that they have to take things slow. He is gentle and kind and compassionate, and she looks up at the stars briefly and thinks that maybe, maybe this could work. They don't accuse her—they twinkle just as gently and lovingly as they always did before. Stars are constant. Stars merely want to watch her shine.

It's a long, slow process. Thomas is infinitely patient when she's wearied. There are some nights when she can see Jack's face as vividly as the evening in the car, when she held him so close and their heartbeats raced in tandem. But those nights become fewer and farther between, and before she knows it, she's off in college studying art like she's always wanted to, taking psychology courses in her free time. It's nice to know she shines pretty brightly when she wants to.

So when Thomas proposes, she accepts, and they go on a honeymoon to the beach and ride horseback in the surf. She straddles the mare with both legs and gallops her way down. Her heart is pounding and her cheeks flushed. Her hair flows wild and radiant behind her, and in that moment, she knows he is there, he is watching, he is so proud.

She pauses to remember the sound of the waves crashing in and out against the sand, and hocks way deep back in her throat, and spits like a real man into the ocean.

All the sadness goes out with it.

She's left with only the sunset.

**A/N: I'm not sure what that was. Please read and review regardless. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Sorry this took so long to update. Thanks for all the reviews, they really do make me smile :).  
Here is Jack's POV.  


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Once upon a time—an eternity ago, in a different world and different life, it seems—he had climbed over steel railings and stumbled onto the first class deck. He'd worn a black bowler hat and pulled her into a gym room alone, for a hissed conversation, a stolen moment. Among other things, he'd told her that all he wanted was for her to be all right.

Looking back, he wants to roll his eyes at his own naiveté. What he said was truth, mainly. She still is the most amazingly astounding, wonderful woman he has ever known. He still is too involved. She still isn't a picnic, and he still loves the fire in her.

But he lied when he said all he wanted was for her to be all right, because he wants so much more than that.

He wants to wake up with her in his arms, hair mussed and eyes bleary. He wants to watch her as she dresses, lose himself in how _beautiful_ she is, so that she has to yell at him to pay attention. He wants to be the luckiest man in the entire world. He wants to kiss her whenever he wants, hold her in his arms and sing under his breath, not caring that he's out of tune, until she's lulled to sleep right there—there, curled up next to him, soft and warm and glorious. He wants every bit of that fiery spirit—the inevitable arguing and the insults and the passion, every last ounce of the spoiled rotten brat. He wouldn't give in _all_ the time, either. She needs to learn to grow up, and he wants to be there for each step of her journey.

He wants to see her walk down the aisle in a lovely dress of white, his ring on her finger. He wants to kiss her and promise her forever and know he'll stick to it. He wants her to declare that she is his.

He wants to watch her age, slowly wilting into a shadow of her vibrancy. He'd still find her captivating, even then. He wants to pull on the moves on her that he saw in the nickelodeon, wants to watch her face [her smile, his world] light up when he does them. He wants to take her to that pier on that island, show her how to paint with her fingers, debate with her over the pros and cons of cubism and surrealism, splash her as she squeals and gasps in protest in the water. He wants to hold her hand as they walk by bakeries and quaint little shops, wants to swoop in for a kiss—and get a scandalized: "Jack, not _here_!"—as they step under an awning in the twilight. He wants to laugh at her and all her quirks, wants to have babies with her and treat her right throughout her whole life.

In short, he wants to love her, every inch of her stubborn soul, until neither of them can tell one from the other.

But he doesn't get that chance.

Instead, he gets to watch her cry for eight weeks as she struggles and fights her way out of being nothing. He's there when she finally gets a job at the diner, starts busing table. He sees her knuckles bleed, rubbed raw, sees her skin crack in the dry icy climate, and isn't there to press his lips to them. He sees her whisper his name in the dark of the night, witnesses her thrashing in her bed, caught in another nightmare, and is helpless to comfort her.

He tries to tell her, to urge her, to keep moving. Keep living. She was never meant for inertia. But she doesn't hear him anymore—this is no longer a world where he can pull her into seclusion and rant some sense into her. She is on her own now. It's up to her to save herself.

He's there when she sees—really _sees_—her first sunset since that fateful night. It's like he can read her mind and that spark of hope that swells within her. He can feel her draw in that deep breath and plunge under again—and he knows she'll surface, just like she did last time. She was meant for this life, meant to live as fully as possible. He knows that she'll make it count.

He meets Thomas Calvert when she does, and his heart twists and shatters and breaks a little, crumbles inside. But he picks himself right back up and stands next to her, hands firmly in pockets, as the other man tells Rose to call him "Thomas." This guy's a good one. Thomas will treat his Rose well.

He can read the expression in Thomas's eyes—the admiration, the intrigue, the attraction. Not too long ago, it was him sitting there, staring at that head of red hair and the depth of those blue eyes, wondering and yearning for what secrets lay beneath. She's always been beautiful, inside and out.

It's an uphill battle for her, loving another man. Most of the time he is so happy for her and her new world that she built up brick by brick, stone by stone. Sometimes, though, it makes him ache inside that he's not in it. And it always hurts that she's still so attached to him, that she still whispers _iloveyouJack_ before she sleeps every night. When he said never let go, he meant of her promise to_ live_ against all hope and hardship, to shine brightly and dream big.

He hadn't meant of him.

In a way, though, it makes him proud. She manages to move on without letting go, without completely forgetting. Only Rose would be that strong. He sees her plow through the wedding vows with determination, no falter or hesitation in her _I do_. But at the same time, he knows that she still loves him, loved him from the beginning, always will love him. He'll never understand how she does it, but it's not his place to. She's not entirely his anymore.

He wants to watch her fall asleep next to him every night to reach the iridescence he saw within her. Instead, he sees her waltz under the stars with another man, read bedtime stories to children that aren't his.

He sees and hears and feels so much, but never once does he regret his decision, his sacrifice. He meant it when he said she was the most amazingly astounding, wonderful woman he had ever known. There could be no greater honor for him than to die for her.

It's so bittersweet, this new world in which he exists. This wasn't how he had imagined things, but he's so proud of her for breaking free, for studying art, for excelling at being a wife, a mother, a student, a human being. He just wishes he could've been by her side.

It's rough waiting for her—yes, waiting for her. They were only together for two blissful days, but he knows love when he sees it. He also knows she'll come find him when her life ends, when she can finally sigh her last breath, warm and old in her bed like he had said.

It's just hard waiting, here in the sunset, to kiss her again.

But when all things are said and done, the statement rings true at the end of the day: she's happy and she's all right.

That's all he had said he wanted, that fateful day in the gym room.

And Jack's always been a man of his word.

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**A/N: And there. Now I'm at peace with the whole thing. Please read and review! Thank you so much again.**


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